Spook
by harmoninny
Summary: You see, I learned for myself a few things when it comes to asking too much of wishing flowers. One: never go wishin' for things all willy-nilly like. Two: never take your backwards old man for anything serious. Three: don't you ever wish for chest hair.


A/N: Well helloooo there. I have no idea what spurred on this crazy nonsense. But you know - a girl's gotta write to keep from going crazy. So, bored to tears, I got an idea in my head of this eccentric, naive little filly named Mercy Higgins from the South who finds herself quite without breasts after making a little wish...and the rest you'll have to read for yourself. You'll find out more about Mercy's background as the story goes on! :D

Also, I'm not quite sure who the love interest will be quite yet, so stay tuned for that little tidbit later on...

Disclaimer - If I owned Easy Company, I wouldn't be writing namby-pamby stories about them.

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><p>Of all the dumb ass nicknames in the world, they pick Spook.<p>

In the midst of all this inexcusable - and not to mention insulting as all get out - hokum, Sergeant Randleman gets Bull. Not all that shocking really (have you seen that there fine stallion specimen? he's dangerously pushin' giant status even in a pair of socks, let alone when he slaps those boots on!). But then we get to the ridiculous side of those ruffians' imaginations. Darrell Powers, the boywonder with the trusty rifle? He earns "Shifty", a much too noble title for the precious bouncing baby boy of E Company (in my own humble opinion). Warren Muck nabs Skip, a less than offensive moniker, and Wayne Sisk takes the nicknaming cake with _Skinny_. Now where in the name of Jesus of Nazareth did that come from? There ain't no way that this Sisk fella could qualify as skinny; there ain't an ounce of lean meat on those bones of his!

You see? Those boys, they just don't play _fair_.

They say it's cause I spook easy, like a nervous filly. Well all right, so I'm a tad jumpy when big loud things go off. So I squirm just a teensy bit like a white-wearing virgin the minute they start pushing their crotches up against my leg and they're all drunk off their smart little asses. Does that _really _warrant the whole Spook christening debacle? I ain't no spy. I don't have the smarts for it (sure I know a few fancy words from studying too hard in school, but in the name of baby Jesus himself! - that sure don't warrant me some hoity toity position in the OSS!). And anyway, that childhood stutter of mine would be flaring up somethin' ferocious; I'd give myself way faster than a sinner sweatin' in church!

Sure, the rumors, they're all true. I won't deny it since lying's a sin and I don't plan on going to Hell anytime soon. I screamed like a girl when George Luz jabbed his sopping wet forefinger in my ear and shouted 'FIRE IN THE VIRGIN HOLE' to the entire mess room. I threw up all over the godforsaken place when Joe Liebgott stuffed his filthy sock in my mouth – but in my defense, they were so stiff that they'd begun to crust over and the Heavenly Lord only knows with what!

I run like a girl, which mostly earned me a whole slew of Sobel ass-riding sessions - all the way up Currahee during our Toccoa days (I was Easy Co's very own Seabiscuit). Those made me all _deliriously_ happy. Why, it gave a whole new and disturbing meaning for me to think about in the shower. _Three Miles Up, Three Miles Down._

And in case you didn't catch that drift, I was being a smart-ass. I hated that sonnabitch Sobel - just like any other half-sane, ego-owning member of E Company.

So I'm a bit of a prude. Is it such a bad thing to have never - well, you know...done_ that? _I talk all proper-like and don't have to pepper my words with profanities to come across as kickaroonie (after all, my new hairy, breast-free chest takes care of that for me!). I can't stand the smell of cigarettes and just the vaguest smell of a drink makes me see double. I mean, shit now – _come on. _Is it any wonder I'm a lightweight virgin nun?

Okay, so I ain't a nun.

But I _am _a girl!

Well...sorta.

To put it to you straight, loyal old conscience - I'm a poor defenseless filly trapped in a stallion's body.

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><p>Now here's where you must be scratching your head, looking at that last statement with the words <em>what in the name of good Heaven are you jawin' about now Mercy Higgins? <em>Well, patience dear conscience! I'll tell you if you'll just hold your damn horses now (pun not intended, I promise you that). I'm getting to it.

Here's where the story gets all twist-y and supernatural. You see, there's this wish I made, back when I was young and free and happened to be lying all spread-eagled in my favorite pair of worn-out, well lived in overalls underneath my mother's favorite willow tree (well holee cow - it's going on almost a year now!). I was getting all sleepy with boredom. The summer season had come, school was out, and the end of term brought the last taste of indolence I'd ever get before the real responsibilities of life started setting in. Pa gave me an ultimatum the second I walked in through the back kitchen door.

_Mercy, _he says, _now you gotta be prudent about all this. _I'd listened, of course, but the look on his stern, slightly purple face boded none too well for this little free spirit of mine. _You either gonna get married…or you gonna work the farm like a good girl. Ain't gonna be any arguing 'bout it cause I already dee-cided. You gonna be a housewife or a farm hand. There's your options. _

With pa's words echoing over and over in my head, that little free spirit felt trapped. There was no sense in arguing with him. He'd hear none of it anyway. I had a whole lotta dreams and a whole lotta nowhere to go with them. Oh the tragedy of it all! A young life cut short before its time with responsibilities and premature talks of marriage.

You see, here's where desperation comes in, and desperation – as I'm sure you all know – can make you go crazy stupid in your smart places. To make a short story short - I wanted out. I wanted to run free like an Injun girl with nothing but the moccasins on her feet and the bow and arrows strapped to her back to guide her. I wanted to throw back my head, get a crick in my neck, and stick out my tongue to taste the sweet sea-brine air; I longed to smell that greasy tang of rubbish that supposedly lines the big city streets; I wished so badly to see giant skyscrapers tickle the toes of the clouds and listen as their cottony laughter drifted down to me on the current of the wind. I wanted the rush of the big city, the thrill of adventure, and the freedom to do whatever I damn well pleased. A simple enough request, so I truly couldn't see why it was so hard to fulfill. And now, even worse, life was all but over in those few words my pa had dictated to me, mean beard-covered tyrant that he was. _It's a housewife's life for you or life imprisonment served on the farm, Mercy! Take your pick!_

At least, it'd felt that way. What'd a girl have to do to get some options around here? Grow hair on her chest?

Now _there'd_ been a thought. The moment it occurred to me I'd started chewin' real hard on the splintery stem of my toothpick. If I were a boy, I wouldn't have to deal with any of this 'a girl's place is in the kitchen and no but's about it!' nonsense. I could subscribe to any ol' religion, political party or philosophy that came my way – and I wouldn't have to consult no mule-headed father about my decisions either! I'd be free as a bird and the world would be my oyster. Sounded like the good old red-blooded American dream to me.

For a long time, I'd been humming to myself thinking about how all fine and dandy it'd be to be a boy. To fight in the war like those big, brawny fellas in their snazzy fighting uniforms, the ones I'd see on my merry way to the ice cream shop. The kind that could probably kill you just by taking one good look at you.

Wouldn't that be something! Fighting in a war: It'd be an adventure, that's for certain. Dodging bullets and striking down Germans and screaming war cries like one crazy son of a gun. Pa would never hear of such strange things. Well, pa…he had his own ideas about my life and I had mine. Typical of any father when it came time for his children to fly away from the carefully fashioned security of the nest. He wanted to keep an eye on us, that's all. Keep us safe from that mean old world that lay just beyond the borders of our rickety porch (I wonder, even now, if pa ever fixed that dilapidated death-trap).

But I'd already decided! No amount of hammerin' and hollerin' from my backwards old man could change my mind. I wanted to be a boy! And of all the cruel injustices of the world…I lacked the proper amount of chest hair and male bravado to be one. A wistful little sigh of discontent escaped me then. I'd looked around, clicking my tongue all absent like, and saw a dandelion in my peripheral. Then the idea occurred to me. It was one so undeniably female and silly that I snorted aloud just as it hit me.

I could wish on a wishing flower! That was it! Brilliant, Mercy! A regular stroke of good old fashioned genius.

But what to say? _Dear wishing flower: All I want for Christmas is a smattering of chest hair and to be able to sing We Three Kings in the baritone section of the choir! _Well, wouldn't that be an odd request. I'm sure no wishing flower has ever gotten one like it before! Then again, nature is never all that surprised at all the swell ingenuity of her human dwellers...it couldn't hurt!

I'd plucked up that unsuspecting little white flower, whispered my wish into its petals, and blew so hard that I think all the breath might've left my lungs. The petals all flew into the wind, quickly carried away as I recovered from my crippling dizzy spell. When I came to again, they were all gone. I'd shrugged, threw my arms all haphazard behind my head, folded them, and resumed humming _We Three Kings_ as I got sleepier and sleepier for no reason at all…

You see, I don't remember much afterward...

I'll have to get back to you on that.

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><p>"Hey!"<p>

Now you just go right ahead and ignore them, Spook. And don't act like you like your nickname now either. It doesn't mean they like you. You ain't buddies with those clowns. Them calling you Spook like that just means they make fun of the way you walk behind your back.

Keep eating. Pretend this good for nothing army slop tastes just like momma's cooking.

Oh, how I wish it did –

A piece of bread nicked me in the temple. Hard as a rock, as usual (they should really keep an eye on us delinquents if they're fixing on serving food that's hard enough to use as a deadly assault weapon). For a good long second, I simply sat there, ruminating over the possibility of beating the demons out of those irritating little ruffians. Nah, what good would that do? They'd probably wallop me something fierce anyhow. Better to stay over here, where it's safe.

I settled for rubbing the sore out of the side of my head, taking the Buddhist approach in keeping myself clear out of mischief. I looked around for a moment though. Just to see if anyone of rank saw that juvenile sort of spectacle. Nope. Not a soul. Not even the always saintly Lieutenant Winters, a noble, ginger godsend among the tomfoolery of us common folk.

It was probably that bully, Joe Liebgott, that had thrown it at me. Why I oughta pretty up that lily white skin of his with a couple of fine bruises! Then maybe he'd get off my back! Now if only I could punch harder than a schoolgirl…

"_Hey. _Spook, I'm talkin' to ya," Liebgott called again from down the eating table.

"Don't be rude now, he _was_ talkin' to ya," George Luz commented next to me, all ease and fluffy-haired sweetness. He looked like an elf who just walked out of Santa's workshop, this boy did. If he wore candy-cane striped tights and sported a pair of rosy, tinsel-sprinkled cheeks…why, I wouldn't be able to distinguish him from those toy-making minions of Christmastide up north.

Liebgott ran his tongue real thoughtful-like over the length of his teeth. "So I was sayin' - where you think we're going?"

As I rubbed the last of the soreness out of my temple, I replied, "I don't know and neither do I care to. It ain't my business."

A chorus of _aw, c'mon_ _now_!'sand _you're shittin'_ _me_!'srose up from the men crammed in along the length of the table. Some lifted their hands as if supplicating to God, who I wished would strike them down with some holy soap to rinse the dirt out of their mouths.

They were all in uproar. Mocking me again, of course. I was E Company's very own prudish little plaything after all.

A few of the other boys – less rowdy and incorrigible in my own honest opinion – looked over at us in curiosity. They'd been eating quietly, or else talking like civilized people with civilized voices over their last dinner in Mackall, and were wondering what in God's holy name was going on over there at that table full of hooligans.

Skip Muck interjected with his usual smart-ass outburst. "Be adventurous, Spooky - venture a guess!"

"Uh...the North Pole?"

Luz made a loud, grating buzzer-like sound with that big mouth of his – the kind you heard on radio programs like _Information Please _when a player got an answer wrong. "Sorry, wrong answer!" He winked playfully, sporting a shit-eating grin as big as Texas on his little elfin face. "No dice for you, bub. But thanks for playing."

"Where do you think we're goin' then smart guy?"

He shrugged his shoulders, snatching the smoke from behind his ear. Aw _nuts. _He was going to light up like a chimney with me, the lightweight, sitting right here next to him, wasn't he?

He took a Zippo out of the pocket of his trousers.

Yep. There he goes.

"Doesn't matter what I think," he said, smoking up the place with his cancer stick (in the meantime, I was turning green around the gills next to him). "Cause hell if I know!"

"Hey Lieb, what if they're sending us to the Kraut capital?" Donald Hoobler asked, almost innocently if it weren't for the rascally grin that made his face look like a big ear-framed pumpkin. Hoobler was another adorable elfin-type lad who could easily join Luz in the toy-making ranks up North. "You gonna give your grandma a good kiss if ya see her?"

"I don't gotta grandma in Germany _assface_," said the aforementioned Liebgott, and not without a hint of annoyance. "But you know, if you like, you can give me a kiss for her. Right here on my lil_ass._"

Malarkey, the other redheaded member of our swell company, piped up with an unnecessary, "Ey! Pucker up buttercup!"

Liebgott made a sound so much like a growl that it was almost precious. I had half a mind to lean over, pinch his cheeks and stuff him full of fruitcake right then and there. However, as his belligerence continued to pollute the conversational air of the mess hall, the motherly spell over me was presently broken. Alas. It was all the better for my 'puffy male ego' image – it wasn't very manly to croon over the undeniable baby-faced cuteness of grown men in the middle of the dinner rush.

Frank Perconte, with half of his army slop leaking out of his open mouth, told them, "I bet you ten bucks it's fucking Europe."

"No one cares what you think, Perconte!" Someone replied. I thought it might've been Skinny, the nickname misfit. Or was it Skip? Argh, they're all smart-ass, shit-eating rabble-rousers! I couldn't tell the difference between them.

But because of that one man's smart mouth, we all had to pay.

Perconte swore at them heatedly, his mouth all unhinged and open as the endless string of profanities mixed with goopy army slop came spewing out across the table. People dodged left and right, but poor Doc Roe wasn't paying much attention to the goings-on around him and got a good helping of Perconte-flavored slop all over his freshly pressed fatigues. Modus operandi for the good doctor (who you know, wasn't really a doctor) was to forgive and forget. He was a saint amongst saints, sweet endearing Cajun that he was. But even he sat there, slack-mouthed and brokenhearted, for the length of one torturously long moment as he struggled to come to terms with what had happened to him. And after he'd, most likely, just had it cleaned! What a crying shame. Truly a tragedy of the worst laundry-related kind.

We all held our breath collectively, not daring for one brave second to let it out until we saw Doc Roe's reaction with our own peepers. Half of us, I'm sure of it, thought he'd pop a vein and start screaming at the lot of us in a severely pissed off fashion and curse us all with that deep Bayou witch magic of his people.

But he surprised all those naysayers by wiping the majority of it off with a napkin, answering Perconte's thickly accented apologies with a wave of his hand and a folksy sort of 'it's all right now' way.

And let me tell you the firsthand account of the gruesome waiting scene – watching the slop drain slowly out of the corners of Perconte's still half open mouth wasn't all that pretty neither.


End file.
